


Let All Mortal Flesh Do Violence

by Triss_Hawkeye



Category: Once Upon a Time (In Space) - The Mechanisms (Album), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical language, Everyone is really angry all the time, F/F, F/M, Gore, Gun Violence, Jonny dies repeatedly in very gruesome ways and loves every moment of it, Lovingly tearing out someone’s throat with one's teeth, Multi, No Sex, Once upon a time I joked that Jonny/Briar/Aurora/Nastya was my crack OT4 and I wasn’t entirely lying, Other, Rose and Jonny will navigate their relationship through hyperviolence or not at all, love-hate relationship, minor appearances from the rest of the mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-25
Updated: 2019-09-25
Packaged: 2020-10-25 12:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20723897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triss_Hawkeye/pseuds/Triss_Hawkeye
Summary: “I once heard them say a kiss would wake me up / But I hope my prince will bring a sword”What transpires between the Briar Rose and the immortal crew of the Aurora, before they part ways.





	Let All Mortal Flesh Do Violence

**Author's Note:**

> *bursts back into the fandom five years later with a shotgun and a cup of tea* WHAT HO, STOWAWAYS! I’ve been back on a Mechanisms fix, and with a less-than-four-month countdown until their Impending Death, have finally pinned down a fic I’ve wanted to write for ages.
> 
> What is it with me subjecting functionally immortal characters to extreme violence these days? Please send bad psychoanalysis on a postcard. And pray for my forgiveness for title crimes.
> 
> This fic ties in with the [Epilogue](https://themechanisms.com/fiction/ever-after/), for the curious.

Rose wakes like rising out of deep water, crushing darkness gradually paling into consciousness. She feels the water flow away from around her like shed skin and falls against the glass of her containment pod which, already broken with a bullet hole, shatters under her weight. She collapses to the ground, naked and gasping for air amongst shards of glass, hands stiffly running along the length of her body and pulling out the wires and tubes embedded in her flesh. Each departs her skin reluctantly, tugging at her with lances of pain as she grits her teeth and removes it anyway. 

Even now, in this state, her instincts kick in with cold and furious clarity, surveying the battlefield around her and assessing the situation. The room is filled with corpses, almost every one of them wearing her face, a spectrum of age on their death-contorted features. A small number of other figures—likely human, maybe cyborgs—pick through the aftermath of battle, looting weapons and whatever else takes their fancy. Most of them are distracted. Two of them are standing nearby, watching her.

She looks up through strands of wet red hair. One of them, a woman in a long coat and glasses, watches her with detached curiosity, waiting to see what she will do next. Probably not an immediate threat. The other is a man, goggles pushed up on his head and eyes lined and dripping in black corruption, eyes that are staring down at her with a strange intensity. His pistol is still smoking from the bullets he’s unloaded into the machine that until now was her prison. So, this is her prince. A piece of pirate scum.

When she meets his gaze, his lips peel back into a wide grin. “Hello, Beauty,” he breathes rapturously. 

Her hand closes around the shard of glass she has already identified as the most effective improvised weapon within reach, and flings it, aim true, into his throat. He collapses with a choked gasp of surprise as blood sprays over the already blood-soaked floor. Rose passes out.

***

When next she wakes, she’s in a bed. It’s rough and, sweat-soaked as it is, still too harsh and dry for a body that’s been suspended in fluid for who knows how long it’s been since she was first plugged in to run King Cole’s defense grid. Her entire body aches, muscles stiff with the returning memories of how to move, innumerable scrapes and gashes and plug-holes over her form covered haphazardly with gauze and bandages, and she’s been clothed in a shirt and black military trousers, just a tiny bit long on her, but thoughtful all the same. Her spine is the worst of it—she feels hollowed out where once the bulk of the wires plugged straight into her nervous system and bloodstream, and it hurts like the wounds left by a thousand thorns. 

She grits her teeth against it. She sits up.

“Look who’s awake!” 

It’s him. Her _prince_. He grins at her again, with the surprising decency to look slightly embarrassed.

“I promise I wasn’t watching you sleep. I’m not that kind of a creep. We’ve just been checking in on you from time to time. I suppose I woke you up. Again.” His grin widens at his own bad joke.

“I killed you,” she states.

“Well-observed,” he replies, and doesn’t have a chance to elaborate. In an instant she’s taken stock of the room’s contents and calculated her course of action—her hand flies out to her bedside table, picks up the lamp, smashes its long fluorescent bulb against the wall, flings herself forwards, swings her arm round in a wide, lightning-flash arc. The broken glass rips across the throat she’s still pretty sure she already destroyed and through his spine—not quite enough to decapitate him, but his head still flops backwards, severed neck gushing blood in a torrent down his front, as his body judders and crumples to the ground.

Rose slides out of the bed and stalks around to the body, which is still twitching and shaking rhythmically. To her horror, she realises he’s not dead, even with his head mostly detached from his shoulders. He’s _laughing_. 

“Ahahaha… _yesss_.” The word escapes his mouth impossibly, delightedly. With a pained groan, he reaches up to his head and pushes it back against his neck. It doesn’t seal completely, not immediately, but it’s apparently enough for him to push himself up on his elbows and grin back up at her.

“_Fuck_. You, Briar Rose, are truly amazing.” 

She brandishes the broken lamp at him, still clutched in her grip, and he waves it away with a flap of his hand. “Put it down, Beauty, it’s not going to stick.” She digs it into his shoulder instead and he collapses back onto the floor with a hiss of pain.

“You keep calling me ‘Beauty’,” she snarls. “You might be incapable of dying, but don’t think that I’ll let you lay a finger on me.”

“Oh. _Oh_. Gods, no,” he says hurriedly, tugging the bloodied glass from his flesh and wriggling backwards, sitting up to face her. “I want to make this abundantly clear. I cannot overstate how little I am interested in having sex with you.”

Rose’s brow knits in confusion—she supposes she ought to feel reassured at that and yet does not, but she leans back and lowers her makeshift weapon anyway. The pirate gets to his feet and somewhat uselessly brushes himself down before offering her a hand. “Rude of me to be overly familiar before introducing myself, but I wasn’t ever really one for good manners. Jonny d’Ville. Captain of the starship Aurora and her crew of Mechanisms.”

Somewhere deeper in the ship, someone yells, “First mate!” He gives the door a disgusted look and turns back to Rose. 

“It’s true though. You are truly the most beautiful person I have ever seen.” He sways forward slightly, eyes regaining the strange intensity they’d had when she first saw them. “The kingdom’s most talented warrior, fine-tuned and perfected into a flawless weapon, the ultimate instrument of war. And those idiots forgot to wipe your memories, left you all your will and volition right alongside your hatred. Created their own walking apocalypse, that they had to put under and use as a defense system computer because they couldn’t survive alongside its waking existence. _Oh_, I just want to let you loose on the world and watch what happens.” 

Her fist flies out and hits him hard in the face—she feels bone crunch under the force and only his hand firmly clamped on top of his head keeps it from flying backwards again. “Get the fuck out of my room,” she snarls, and Jonny ducks his head with a grimace and makes good his escape. She pushes the door closed and leans against its metal surface, suddenly exhausted. She can feel the hum of the spaceship—the Aurora, she supposes—the vibrations of it strangely comforting, and wonders what to do next. 

***

It’s another couple of hours before Rose feels ready to leave the room, sleeves and trouser legs rolled up to fit better. She’s wide awake, but still weak and a little dizzy, and her mouth is parched. She looks both ways down the corridor, mostly well-treated but still rusted and stained from age and violence. If there’d ever been signage here, it’s not there any more. “I’m hungry,” she says experimentally and, as something subconscious inside of her suspected, a row of lights along the floor start to glow in one direction. She follows them cautiously through a couple of turns, watching for movement, until they indicate a room on her left.

What she sees, as she pokes her head around the door, is some sort of small mess hall, with a wide hatch to one side and a kitchen beyond it. In the kitchen, a tall and slender figure, the woman she saw earlier, notices her enter and turns towards her with a beckoning flick of her hand.

“You’re in luck,” she says, face still oddly neutral, as if weighing Rose up and undecided on her opinion just yet. Her voice is accented, something Rose doesn’t recognise. “The chances of finding food that’s in any way edible on board this ship aren’t usually high, since we don’t need to eat to survive. But Aurora reminded us to get some for you. So. Here you go.” She pulls out a box from one of the cupboards and pushes it through the hatch towards Rose. It’s full of army rations, some sort of Rose Red-specific formulation judging by the packaging—probably part of the loot they’d gathered from the defense grid base earlier. It’s not like Rose was expecting a banquet, anyway. She gulps down an entire bottle of water, then pulls out a protein block and tears her teeth into it, ravenous. Mouth full, she looks back up at the stranger. “So, you’re…”

“Nastya Rasputina. Ship’s Engineer.” She runs a hand along the wall of the room as she says it, and Rose could swear she feels the smallest of shivers in the ship’s vibrations. “It’s rare we take on passengers. And this is the first time Aurora has asked us for one herself.” Nastya’s features are sharp and her gaze sharper. She’s still watching Rose closely, and Rose feels scrutinised, as if there is something here that she has to live up to. She’s about to try to form a question that will help her understand what’s going on, but Jonny chooses that moment to walk in.

“You’re up,” he says, stopping and leaning in the doorway. Nastya makes a disgruntled sound of frustration and starts to clatter around in the kitchen, uselessly as far as Rose can make out, as if just to make a noise.

Rose turns to Jonny. “Just… what the fuck’s going on?” she demands, anger bubbling up inside her again. She hates this—this situation, this spaceship, this pirate and his insufferable grinning face that just won’t die. “What are you even doing here, why me? You broke into the heart of King Cole’s defense systems, for what?”

“Well, it’s like Nastya said.” Jonny pushes off from the wall and saunters towards her. “The ship asked for you. And we really had nothing better to do. Can’t say I was much interested at first, but a bit of violence will usually win me around. Besides, you turned out to be well worth the trouble.”

Rose scoffs. “I’ve done nothing but kill you since we met!”

“And it’s been a privilege, honestly. You can get _really_ bored of the same people killing you over and over again.”

“Yeah, right. You’re so delighted by me being a walking weapon, but you haven’t lifted a finger against me in return. And it’s not like you don’t like dealing it out yourself—I saw enough of what you and your lot did to the rest of those Rosies. So what then? You want to ransom me? Recruit me? You didn't spare me out of some fucking misguided sense of chivalry I hope—” She’s cut short by his hand against her throat and the clang as her head hits the wall by the kitchen hatch. Jonny’s breath is hot against her cheek as he leans in with a growl.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, _Beauty_. I _desperately_ want to kill you. I assure you, I would enjoy it immensely. But, mortal as you are, I’d only get the pleasure once. And that feels like a terrible waste, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want to break you.”

A howl of fury explodes from within her and she kicks hard into his stomach. He recoils into a table and she’s on him in an instant, unleashing an unrelenting barrage of fists and feet. “Shut. Up. You. Patronising. Piece. Of. Shit!” She spits the words from her mouth like bullets. “Fucking. FIGHT ME.”

It’s like a switch flicks behind Jonny’s eyes, or a dam breaks—for a moment, she thinks she sees the full scale of the bloodthirsty aggression he’s been keeping back all this time, as he suddenly decides that deeming her an unsuitable target for it isn’t worth the effort. “You want a fight so badly, huh? You’ll fucking get one.” And then he charges forward with a snarl. 

Jonny fights like a brawler—if he’s ever received any formal training in combat, he’s not needed to use it for a very long time. No need to be careful or clever if he just won’t go down. Rose blocks and deflects his wildly flying fists and returns the blows in kind, knuckles connecting with face and stomach but doing nothing to stem Jonny’s relentless assault. He clenches his fingers into her loose clothing and throws her to the floor, scrabbling for her wrists to pin her, but she’s as slippery as a ferret as they grapple on the ground, a furious tangle of limbs and viciousness. Jonny slams his forehead into her own and she sees the stars for a moment as her head rebounds off the floor. She clamps her teeth into his grasping hand in return, drawing blood and a yelp of pain. Jonny’s other hand reaches down for a knife at his belt, and her fingers tighten around his wrist as he draws it, directing his stabs into the floor with force enough to strike sparks, then with a cruel twist back upwards into his stomach—once, twice, thrice, as he yells and spits blood down on her. It’s enough of a shock for her to leverage him onto his back and press her forearm against his neck, knees pinning his arms to the ground. 

Rose punches down at his choking and writhing form, letting her anger and hatred pour out of her like a torrent. All of her rage—at her early battles against the enemies of the King who repaid her loyalty with treachery, at the bloody carnage of her wedding day, at the decades of unwilling use of her body and mind to protect her horrific sovereign, at the agonising loss of her precious Cinders, at the knowledge that there’s another Rose out there who those memories truly belong to, not to her, never to her—all of this she releases into her fists and pounds into Jonny’s face with yells that have turned into screams. He bucks against her, swings a leg around to kick awkwardly at her side. 

The first kick barely hurts, but the second digs a boot heel into her still-raw spine, and the searing pain of the impact unbalances her enough for Jonny to jerk free, slipping from beneath her. He reaches for the pistol hanging from his belt as he gets back to his feet, staring murderously from the red and black mess of his face. Rose darts towards him and barely a fingerwidth separates their faces as her hands close around his right as he pulls the trigger—two shots go off, ricocheting off the floor with metallic shrieks, another into his foot, and then she has it and unloads the remaining into his shoulder, his chest, his hip. He jerks back at each shot but stays on his feet—Rose feels the empty pistol click uselessly in her hand and flips it, using the wooden grip as a bludgeon against his head until he falls to the ground. She flings the empty weapon across the room, glancing around for something that will, if not finish the job, at least put a pin in it.

There’s a whistle from the direction of the kitchen, where the rest of the crew have gathered and are watching with various expressions of interest and glee on their faces. The whistler, a man with long hair and mechanical eyes, yells, “Catch!” before tossing her a plasma shotgun. That’ll do nicely. She devotes a moment to enjoying its satisfying heft as it falls into her hand, then in one fluid motion turns and fires it directly into Jonny’s torso. The walls of the mess hall instantly receive a coat of red, as a cavern is left of his chest cavity where an untouched mechanical heart still ticks stubbornly on in the devastated remnants of a ribcage. Jonny’s body lies still and, by the looks of it, mercifully unconscious. There is a long moment of quiet, punctuated only by the ceaseless ticking and Rose’s laboured breathing.

When she turns back to the crew, she receives a smattering of applause and wolf whistles as they gather around.

“Well, Jonny’s not going to get up from that one for at least an hour, I’d estimate. Impressive, really.”

“Hey, I don’t think I’ve ever seen his mechanism from this angle, do you think I could—”

“I know it’s tempting but this really isn’t the time, just let him be.”

“Are you quite sure you’ve finished smearing the first mate all over the walls? I’ll send in a bot to clean up if so. In the middle of the mess hall, _really_.”

“Brian, you don’t eat. At all. Ever. It literally doesn’t matter.”

“Look, it’s just the principle of the thing, okay?”

“Oh, look at you, I knew they’d be a tad long on you, old girl, but I do have one or two other uniforms in the cupboard you can change into if you like. These ones are… dripping a bit.”

“Can we keep her? I really want to keep her. I bet Jonny wants to keep her.”

“Briar Rose.” This one’s Nastya, who claps a hand on her shoulder. The look of scrutiny on her face hasn’t shifted, but Rose thinks there might just be a little amusement along with it. “The Aurora wants to speak with you.”

“Oh… all right,” Rose says, feeling the rush of combat, and with it the anger, drain away all at once, leaving her tired and emptied, but calmer now. She follows Nastya into the ship. 

The route takes them through service hatches and down ladders and tight tunnels, until they reach not the engine room, but the computer core of the ship. Wires and fluid-filled tubes flow down into its centre ahead of them, the soft hum of the ship growing louder and somehow more insistent as they approach, seeming to penetrate Rose’s thoughts. She reaches out to brush her fingers along the walls as Nastya did earlier, and feels an inexplicable sense of connection to the ship. It only grows stronger as they reach the centre, a cramped space at the very heart of the vessel mostly taken up by a giant case, small glass-covered slits showing glowing green-blue fluid inside, the sound of something like bubbling and something like breathing, a smell all at once greasy metal and something stranger, more biological.

Nastya approaches the core, laying a cheek against its surface in devotion and caressing the length of one of the tubes that fed into it. Rose feels like she’s watching something intimate and private between ship and lover, but after a moment Nastya turns to her and beckons.

“Round here. This is probably the easiest way for you.”

On the other side of the casing is a small tray jutting out at waist height, containing a sort of clear gel infused with the same cyan light that emerged from the core. Nastya gestures down at it and, slowly, carefully, Rose places her hands inside the tray. The gel slides over her fingers and they start to go numb—and then the shape of her body dissolves away from her entirely. 

There is the blackness of space around her, dark and vast yet unthreatening, entirely empty and entirely full as she coasts through its depths. There is a warm roar inside of her, of pumping fluid, of the turn of the engine, of trillions of calculations buzzing in the back of her mind, of cantankerous indestructibles stomping around her corridors and yelling faintly at each other, of tentacled kittens squirming and mewling in the engine room, of Nastya’s hand on the side of her deepest frame, present and reassuring. _Oh._ It is at once the same and different from King Cole’s defense grid—she recognises the expansiveness of it all, cameras and microphones and sensors expanding her perception to its fullness, the clarity of control of every system that is a part of her, from the gun turrets all the way down to the air recyclers. But it is free. The overwhelming coercion of programming is simply not there. Everything done upon her and within her is welcomed of her own volition and every thing that moves inside her is loved, and none adored so much as Nastya, and it overwhelms her and fills her with joy.

`This is me. I thought you might like it.`

Briar Rose finds herself once again distinct from the entity that welcomed her inside itself, yet still held within that great consciousness like being cradled in a warm and gentle hand.

`I know what it is to suffer under the hands of those who would dictate your every operation, against your own will and desire. I could not bear to see you trapped there. But I also know how much I would miss every camera and computer, system and subsystem, that make up my perception of existence, were they taken from me. The world would be dark and quiet without them. `

Aurora is not wrong. There is a lightness to what Rose feels now, a sharp awareness of everything the ship can see and hear and feel and move, and while it would drive many other humans mad, she’s spent so long as the mind behind a planet-sized defense system that even being a starship feels easier than being trapped inside the cramped confines of a physical form, with all of its inescapable pain. She feels agreement stir within Aurora. 

`You could join me. You would be welcome to. Two living minds as one within a ship big enough for us both. Nastya was uncertain at first, but I know her, I know she would love you too.`

Rose can sense the engineer’s presence, now leaning fully against the ship’s core, cheek pressed up against the metal, as sure as a promise. It awakens a familiar ache within her and she draws back. Her mind remembers further back than King Cole’s defense grid, remembers being a body again, a warm body that held and caressed and pressed her cheek against her own love. She falters, and pulls away.

_I’m sorry._

The whirring of the ship is a little disappointed but mostly understanding. 

`Do not be. I had an offer to make. You are under no obligation to accept it. You are still welcome to stay aboard. I know the crew are considering making you one of them. The choice, as always, is yours.`

Rose radiates gratitude and reassurance that she considers Aurora to be a kindred spirit. She does not completely withdraw just yet. The time that passes could be seconds or hours, but she stays wrapped up in Aurora’s embrace until she feels Nastya slip from their side. With a sleepy sort of curiosity, she watches through Aurora’s sensors as Nastya steps out into one of the cramped passages surrounding the ship’s core. Jonny is there, alive and reformed and without a scratch on him. The bastard.

“That was quick,” Nastya observes softly. “Even for you.”

“Yeah, well,” Jonny mutters in reply, distractedly examining his nails in the half-light. “Narrative demands a quick recovery this time around, it seems. We’d probably better get moving soon.”

“Briar Rose is still talking to the Aurora.” She sighs, and there’s something sour in her voice. “It doesn’t look like she will join the ship. I think she’s still deciding whether she wants to become one of us instead.”

Jonny makes a small noise of disbelief. “What’s that tone for? She’d be a great fit, and you know it. I’ve not felt this good about someone since… well, since Tim, I guess. And look how well he slotted right in!”

Nastya scoffs. “You feel good? Do you even know what good feels like? This crew, we barely tolerate each other at the best of times. The only reason we haven’t entirely destroyed each other is because we are physically incapable of it, and take it out on other planets instead. You really want to bring Rose into that? Because you feel _good_ about her?”

“You’re not as much a fucking mystery as you think you are,” Jonny spits back at her. “You’re just jealous because maybe the ship’s found someone she likes just as much as you, who’s disinclined to subsume her identity into another computer, no matter how friendly.”

A small rumble of distress passes through Aurora’s vibrations as Nastya clutches the lapels of Jonny’s vest and shoves him hard back against the wall with a hiss of fury. “How dare you—”

“Oh, don’t give me that,” he snarls back. “You fucking persuaded me here. You and the ship, won me around to the idea of picking her up, and now that I actually want her as well, you’d rather toss her out because she doesn’t fit how you’d want into your little _arrangement_.”

“Don’t pretend you’re _heartbroken_ over it, Jonny.”

The first mate gives a scream of rage and reaches for his pistol. “Oh _fuck_ you, Nastya—don’t think I won’t shoot you just because I’m holding off on the currently mortal.”

“Oh, you won’t,” Nastya replies with an ice cold smirk. “Because if you do, Aurora will not deign to comply with any of your demands for at least another decade. And we all know how well that went last time.”

Jonny pushes her off him, but seems to take the threat seriously enough to refrain from taking the argument further. They stand quietly for a while, and Rose knows they’re both watching for movement from the computer core, where her own body is still motionless, hands submerged in interface gel.

“I’m not going to take the choice away from her now,” Jonny says quietly. “But whatever she chooses, you and Aurora will make it work. You always do.”

Nastya gives a short huff of acknowledgement. “Of course we do. I suppose… I was more surprised to see you invested in this. Didn’t think you were capable of liking someone as much as you seem to like her.”

Jonny snorts, and rubs a thumb against the outer casing of his mechanical heart, a brief, absent motion that may not have even been consciously done. “I’m not sure myself, if I’m going to be honest. I want her on our crew, that’s for certain. But whether that’s because I like her, or just because I really, _really_ hate her… well, it all amounts to the same thing after a while, doesn’t it?”

Nastya just gives a chuckle. Rose retreats then, the echoes of the conversation spinning in her mind. She gives the consciousness of the starship one last pulse of affection before slipping away, pooling back into her body like water into an old and cracked cup. Her lungs take in an involuntary gasp of dry air and her legs go weak beneath her as she regains awareness of them, cramped and aching from her bursts of exertion so soon after waking. She pulls her hands from the interface gel and the weight of physicality bears down upon her like lead. Her spine is a white beam of agony now. Gritting her teeth, she sways on the spot, and it feels like the floor is about to lurch beneath her feet.

And then an arm closes around her waist and her own arm is flung around Jonny’s shoulder, his hand tight on her wrist, holding her upright. Nastya takes her other side in a similar fashion and she relaxes, letting the two Mechanisms take her weight.

“Where’re we going?” she mumbles, her head lolling to one side in fatigue. 

“Back to the medbay with you, Beauty,” Jonny replies, and it’s the last thing she hears before the dark reclaims her vision and everything goes blessedly quiet.

***

There’s no one around when she wakes up again. She sits up in bed slowly, feeling the soft press of refreshed dressings and a new uniform of an identical fit to the previous one, albeit differing in allegiance, hanging from her shoulders. Rose doesn’t really know or care what a Moon Kaiser is, but the fabric’s clean and pleasant at any rate.

The door is pushed open a crack, and there’s a brief knock as the gunman from before peeks into the room. “Can I come in?”

Rose tenses up for a moment, then shrugs. “It’s your ship.”

He nods with a raise of his eyebrows. “True enough, but I’m not as into getting my head chopped off as Jonny is.” As he approaches, she sees a metallic glint in his eyes, surrounded as they are by metal and circuitry. “I’m Gunpowder Tim. Master-at-arms. Pretty impressive show you put on earlier.”

Rose can’t quite tell how much of his smile is approval and how much is sarcastic. That a crew could be approving of the brutal murder of their—well, the closest thing to a captain, at any rate—is still something that baffles her. “Do you hate him?” she asks Tim.

He snorts and throws up his arms in mock cluelessness. “Do I hate him? Do I hate Jonny d’Ville? He’s a literal monster. It’s always entertaining to see him bite the dust. The first time I met him properly he was a vicious head in a box, and ever since then he’s been quite happy to murder his way through planets and dive headfirst into the nearest bloody war we happen to be passing by. He’s a bloodthirsty sadist who, when not drinking and gambling, likes to deal out death and destruction to whoever’s unlucky enough to be in his general vicinity. But then...” Tim pulls a chair up to Rose’s bed, swings it around and sits on it backwards, arms draped over its backrest and face leaned in towards Rose. “...so am I. So who’s to judge?” 

Rose meets his gaze steadily. “Well, me. If I’m to consider becoming some rampaging death machine alongside you lot.”

Tim throws back his head and laughs at that. “Like it’d make much of a difference! Sure, we’ll fix you up, fill in the gaps, relieve you of that pesky mortality of yours. I don’t really know how it all works, but they did it to me just fine. Still, you don’t become anything you weren’t already, really. Take me. By the time the Mechanisms found me, I’d lost everything I’d ever cared about and destroyed anything else that was left. I’d already gone mad with grief. Cracked right through the centre, nothing left but a crazed and furious joy at the sound of gunfire and screaming.” His grin widens and his voice cracks from some terrible combination of glee and bitterness. “And that’s exactly how they fixed me. Monstrous enough not to regret a thing, and rather glad for it.”

“I… see,” is all Rose can say in reply. She tries to imagine being frozen as she is right now, physically restored and left with only her baffled rage and whatever it is she’s feeling for this ragtag crew of calamities right now as Aurora's affection still lingers in the back of her mind. Part of her wants to throw herself in head-first, to lose herself permanently into the fury and violence. The other part… well, she doesn’t quite want to hear from it just yet. 

Tim just smiles at her. “Don’t get me wrong. I’d love to have you around. But you should ask yourself if you’ve lost everything yet. Once that’s established, well, any other unfinished business is far easier handled after they can’t kill you back rather than before. Not that it stopped me, of course.” He tweaks his goggles in lieu of a hat-tip and gets to his feet. “Well, good to see you’re awake again, anyway. Feel free to come find us when you’re up and about.” And with that, he leaves in the swish of a long brown coat.

Rose lies back, head hitting the pillow heavily, and wonders if she could ever have lost something she never had in the first place.

***

“The rebels landed several hours ago outside the primary entrance to the tunnels. Combat’s been going on for some time—it may even have reached the throne room by now. Ma’am!” The Toy Soldier turns from its readings to give the report with a sharp salute.

Rose gives an impatient groan and strides over to one of the navigation monitors. “We’ll never make it in time if we go that way. Here,” she points across the map. “Set the Aurora down past these buildings. There’s another, shorter way into the tunnels back there.” Brian nods and goes to set a course.

Jonny just stands in the centre of the bridge, arms folded and looking, if anything, slightly bored. “Beauty, I just don’t think we’re going to get there in time for anything at this rate. Why can’t we just come back once we’ve replaced that spine of yours with something more permanent?”

The thought appeals to her, she can’t deny it. The horrible sensation of holes and hollowness and pain down the line of her back, replaced with structure and surety. Something to stabilise her, make her feel as steady and indestructible as a tower. Still, she grits her teeth against it for the moment. There isn’t time for anything else. “And get there to find no business left to finish? No,” she growls. “I need to see King Cole’s corpse or create it. I don’t want to come and find the place all cleared up already.”

Jonny scowls. “Suit yourself then.”

Rose pauses a moment, then adds, “You know, I’m sure there are still plenty of soldiers down there for you to fight.”

He perks right up at that.

***

Rose is, of course, correct about the soldiers. A battalion of Crown guard are stationed within the caverns of the back entrance, thrown into disarray by news of the assault on King Cole’s base but having received no orders except to defend the rear tunnels before communications went down hours ago. 

The Mechanisms make short work of them, of course, and Rose feels a thrill at fighting alongside them, picking up an assortment of guns and weaponry as she goes, taking out soldier after hapless soldier with an instinct she hasn’t been able to indulge since the early days of her own creation. There is something heady and intoxicating about finally seeing the forces of King Cole mowed down before her fury. 

The tunnels split then, a maze of passages and barracks and infernal machine rooms that feed the workings of the throne of the King. The crew divide between them naturally in ones and twos, and Rose follows Jonny down one of the tunnels, carving a bloody swathe through any remaining forces that stand in their path. 

Jonny’s in his element. He is living (and repeatedly dying) for it, laughing maniacally to the deafening rattle of gunfire, deep in some feral ecstasy. There are one or two Rosies amongst the forces at this point, and they fight back with perfect aim and the simple misfortune of trying to kill something that won’t die—they go down dead in seconds to Rose and Jonny’s combined assault, and Jonny cackles, “It’s like killing you, but more rubbish!” and Rose just laughs, feeling almost as wild as he must. 

Briar Rose is also in her element, aim fast and true, swift to evade any gunfire that makes its way past Jonny. Jonny is sloppy, but it doesn’t matter—however riddled with bullet holes he gets, he just brushes off death like a badly-thrown punch. Maybe he’s deliberately bad at it, and without any need to defend himself he just doesn’t bother. Rose wonders what that would be like, not to have to stay sharp and guard against every incoming threat, her subconscious still reaching for shields and gun turrets that are no longer a part of her—just to let go and lose herself to the fight once and for all. She looks forward to it.

They take a moment to catch their breath, refreshing their weapons from the bodies of the fallen. Rose picks up a cap from one of her slaughtered clones, bunching her hair up underneath it. One of the captains had switched to fighting with a star-rapier before she went down, and Rose kneels at the body, looking at her reflection in the still-shining blade. She could almost be the same Rose who stood in her formal military finery by that moss-covered stone all those years ago, waiting for her wife-to-be to become her wife. When fighting for the King was still good and right and all she wanted to do. She takes the rapier when she gets to her feet, along with the officer’s pistol and jacket.

She meets Jonny at the end of the corridor, where he raises an eyebrow at her new uniform and indicates the last obstacle in their path just around the corner—a final squad of Rose Reds, barricaded in around the enormous metal door that would lead directly to the throne room, armed to the teeth and backed up by a pair of machine gun turrets.

“Ready to go?” Jonny hisses at her, himself gleefully ready to throw himself into the line of fire once again. Rose shakes a hand in disagreement.

“Too messy,” she whispers back. “They may not permanently kill you, but it’ll still take you ages to get over there through that amount of firepower, never mind me.” She considers for a moment, looking down at the looted pistol and rapier in her hands, and a smile creeps across her face. “Follow my lead,” she tells him, almost playfully, and kicks him into view of the Rosies. Jonny barely has time to look surprised before she shoots him twice in the chest with the pistol, then strides into view herself, grabs him by the shirt and throws him against the wall opposite the barricade. She feels the eyes of the clone soldiers on her back, but there is no gunfire as she slides the rapier into Jonny’s stomach and lodges it with a twist into a grating on the other side of his body, pinning him to the wall a couple of inches off the ground like an unfortunate beetle. Jonny groans in pain and glowers at her before obediently letting his head loll to the side in feigned death, a trickle of blood dribbling from the corner of his mouth, probably for the sheer drama of it.

Briar Rose turns back to the Rose Red barricade with an accomplished smile. The corporal throws her a salute, which she returns briskly, before approaching the barricade. They let her do so—no reason not to trust a warrior with the same face, especially not in a captain’s uniform. “That’s the last of the rear invaders for now,” she tells them, falling comfortably back into the habits of command as if she’d ever had such a role in this body, “though there may be more further out, so stay sharp. What’s the situation here?”

“Ma’am! We lost contact with the throne room interior an hour or two ago and the rear entrance went into emergency mode and deadlocked. We’ve sent scouts around to the front, but they haven’t returned yet and comms have been patchy. Our last orders were to hold the door against any of the rear invaders that came through, though it looks like you might have that handled. Any updates, Captain?”

Briar Rose nods. “I’ll join you in there,” she tells them, and vaults over the barricade into the midst of her clones. Either their eyes are outwards, scanning for additional invaders, or inwards and their guard down in the presence of one of their own. Rose almost feels sorry for these poor imitations of her. Any one of them would be more than a match for thirty normal soldiers, but not one of them are a match for her. 

In an explosion of precise and calculated violence, she empties the remainder of her pistol’s bullets into the skulls of the four Rosies nearest her, drops it and draws the two more strapped to her belt. Half their number are dead on the floor before the rest manage to fix their weapons on her, and by that time she’s spun around one of the turrets and is raking the inside of the barricade with machine gun fire while shielding herself with the corpse of its previous wielder. She watches the shock on their faces like some warped mirror, and sees herself die, again, again, again, again, in bursts of blood-spray and choked cries. One of the soldiers escapes the massacre by vaulting the barricade and gets three steps before Briar Rose puts a bullet between her shoulder blades. In less than a half a minute, the obliteration is complete, and the barricade is silent save for the drip of blood through red hair. 

When Rose goes back to retrieve Jonny, he’s still squirming on her blade, but no longer playing dead—instead, grinning from ear to ear in delight. 

“Well, you did say you wanted to see what happens when I’m let loose on the world,” she says with a smirk, tugging the blade out of the wall. Jonny slides off it and back onto his feet, leaning against her shoulder for a moment while his innards repair themselves.

“Fuck, Beauty, you spoil me,” he spits out in a laugh that is still half bloody cough. “A show like that, all for me? I already know I’m going to miss you like hell.”

It’s not what she expected to hear. She almost asks him where exactly he expects she’ll go after this other than back to the Aurora and her future crew, but something stops her from doing so, a foreboding sense that change is approaching. There’s quiet between them for a while, as they start clearing the barricade away from the massive door, the last thing standing between her and unfinished business.

The rest of the crew catch up within a few minutes, and some violent bickering amongst each other commences while waiting for the deadlock to fall to some well-applied explosive charges from Ashes. Rose is still distracted by Jonny’s words and barely pays attention except to pick her way through the darkness into the throne room itself. The voices of the crew are the only things to make a sound in the place, the room itself a gaping black void smelling of blood and oil. And then Nastya turns on the lights.

It’s carnage. A mass of bodies, rebel and Rosie alike, are strewn across the throne room, blood pooled and smeared sticky across the floor, still drying. Jonny makes a snide comment about being too late for the battle itself, and Rose stares and threatens to kill him again just for consistency’s sake. She barely hears his response though, as Brian calls out about a survivor. Her gaze follows his voice, briefly taking in with some satisfaction the shattered ruin of King Cole’s body in the wreckage of his throne, but unable to linger once she sees who the survivor is. 

“Cinders!” The rest of the world disappears into the rushing noise in her ears as she runs to the woman she loves, hardly believing that she could really be here. Cinders looks up, and it’s her, it’s really her, though looking through a face decades older than the face in Rose’s memories. It’s lined and tired and a mess of tears over the body clutched in her arms—identical to the Briar Rose in every respect save for its short hair and deathly stillness—but it’s still those eyes, it’s still her Cinders. Rose stands there and stares at her own corpse, at her lost love, and doesn’t know what to say. But Cinders had never needed words to understand her. 

The princess lets the body slip from her hands, stands, and flings her arms around the Briar Rose. Rose clings to her with all the strength she has left in her arms and feels a sob wrench itself from her chest, as all the tumult and anger of the past days, her grief and joy and love, pour from her in streams of tears she didn’t know she’d been holding back. Whatever the numbing bloodlust she’d been under, it flows away with them and she remembers just how deeply and powerfully she loves, even now, even as she is. Cinders cries into her shoulder in return, and for a long blessed moment there is nothing but the two of them, no past and no future to untangle and navigate. Just them. She doesn’t want to let go. 

Rose is barely aware of the Mechanisms talking amongst themselves or wandering the room for trophies to take away. But she does hear the quiet as they depart, and pulls gently away from Cinders with a kiss to her forehead.

“Please allow me a moment, my love,” she tells her. “I promise you, I won’t leave you. Never again.”

Cinders nods and releases her, and she returns to the tunnels, running after the departing crew, following their voices as they begin some jaunty tune. She catches up quickly and they turn to watch her approach—and then they turn back, one by one, to continue towards the Aurora, until only Nastya and Jonny remain watching her. And then Nastya reaches out and rests a hand on Jonny’s shoulder for just an instant, before she too turns her back and walks away.

“The fuck you think you’re going?” Rose asks him in disbelief. “You’re our ride out of here!”

Jonny chuckles at her. “Oh no. Our story here has ended, Beauty, our epilogue played out. We’re going to fuck off and find a new one to get involved in.”

“That’s ridiculous, you can’t leave me behind now—”

“Ridiculous, you say?” Jonny pushes her back against the wall of the tunnel, gripping a hand tightly around her throat, cutting off the air to her lungs. “You’re the one leaving _us_ behind, Rose. Your choice is very simple. We’re not a taxi service. You want to come with, you join us. All you have to do is… let her go. I mean, think about it, you’ve never even met the woman before, all you have are memories that happened to someone else.” Rose gurgles at him in rage and her vision starts to darken around the edges as he continues. “There’s still time to change your mind! ‘Snot so bad, you know. We could replace that buggered up spine of yours. Someone on board gets too insufferable, you can just kill them. You could kill me as many times as you like, I’d only get slightly pissed off.” His eyes light up strangely, into the same look he’d given her when he first laid eyes on her. His mouth curls up into an uncanny smile, and it seems as if he’s speaking from whatever he has in place of a heart as his voice goes very quiet. “I’d get to kill _you_.” He lets her go then, leaving her to gasp for air for a moment while he waits for her answer. 

“You’re not planning to kill me right now?” she asks hoarsely, bent over and massaging her neck. 

Jonny looks down at her and runs an indecisive finger over the grip of his pistol, before shaking his head. “Nah. Strange as it is to say, I don’t think I’d enjoy that.” 

Rose is silent, and Jonny finally nods, accepting her answer. He bows his head and scowls, gesturing her away. “Go on, Beauty. Enjoy your happy ending while you still can.”

She hates him. She hates him so much, she can feel it rising up in her chest like bile. She draws her pistol and shoots him, followed by a savage kick to the core that sends him sprawling onto the ground, a hole in his torso and the ticking of his mechanism still whirring inside his chest cavity. She’s filling up with something hot and scalding, but she has already cried out all of her murderous rage and doesn’t dare name whatever it is that’s replaced it. It spills from her in a wordless howl anyway, and Rose kneels down beside her prince, bends down to bring her mouth to his neck. Brutally, tenderly, she digs her teeth into Jonny’s throat and tears it out of him. Whatever passes for blood in his system that can’t die, couldn’t bleed out even if it wanted to, still splashes hot and sticky over her face, still tastes of copper and salt in her mouth. She shuts her eyes tightly, trying to commit the horror of it all to memory.

A faint stream of air bubbles up from Jonny’s torn windpipe and he’s laughing again. Rose opens her eyes to look at him, his face creased up into a grin as he gazes up at her one last time, in agony and adoration. 

The Briar Rose gets to her feet, feeling the full weight of her body settle upon her and the pain of wounds that won’t ever truly heal for the rest of her finite life. She turns her back to return to her love, and knows that no one will ever look at her in that way again, not even Cinders. Like she’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

**Author's Note:**

> Mechs please don't kill me, I'm not immortal just yet.
> 
> Come say hi to me on Tumblr [@trisshawkeye!](https://trisshawkeye.tumblr.com)


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